Pravega 2014: Innovative ideas by young brains in Experimental Physics

Pravega hosted the Experimental Physics event as a hands-on physics event in which participants had to take on the roles of real scientists and investigate problems through the use of sophisticated scientific instruments.

There were four slots in total, of which two had already been claimed through an online quiz event. A preliminary selection round in the form of a written test was conducted, for the rest of the two slots. The seven teams competing in the prelims had to go through some really intense and gruelling questions. Most were dumbfounded with the rather bizarre questions thrown at them in the preliminaries of a competition on experimental physics. However, this did not deter the teams from fighting on. They drudged on for an hour, till they had to finally submit their answer sheets.

After the declaration of the qualifiers from the preliminaries, it was time for the four teams to do some real hands on work in the finals. The participants had to conduct experiments to look for the pieces in a complex puzzle using never-before-seen instruments and use their prowess as experimentalists to solve it. One of the participants remarked, that it took some time for his team to get a hang of the devices or to get used to them, but added that it was a pretty educative experience. Most contestants found the problems posed to be very interesting and the overall experience to be thoroughly enjoyable.